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Introduction: COVID-appropriate behavior refers to the development of those habits that may serve to limit the disease's spread and, thus, reduce the number of individuals affected. Vaccinated individuals may be less willing to comply with COVID-appropriate conduct due to their perception of a diminished health risk. Consequently, the present study was conducted to assess public's attitude regarding COVID preventive measures following vaccination.. Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted among adults aged 18 and above. 200 individuals who had received either both doses of COVID-19 or at least one dosage of either COVID-19 participated in this survey, which was performed online and involved the distribution of a self-administered questionnaire via social media. Result(s): Covishield was the most commonly administered vaccination (70%), followed by Covaxin (23%). The majority of respondents adhered to mask use after vaccination (82,5%), but 15% of respondents adhered to mask use less after vaccination than before. 2.5% of respondents reported an increase in mask use. Physical distancing was shown to be less after vaccination among (65.5%) than before vaccination. 19% of study participants reported that their frequency of hand washing with soap and water decreased following vaccination. 31% of respondents said that their usage of hand sanitizer dropped following vaccination. Conclusion(s): It should be stressed to the public that getting vaccination does not make them invincible foe the various new strains in circulation of the virus. Strict policy making should be emphasized to make people follow COVID appropriate behavior at all times.Copyright © 2023, Institute of Medico-legal Publication. All rights reserved.
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Background: Vaccination against COVID 19 and observing COVID appropriate behavior are effective measures to control, manage and prevent COVID-19 infection. With India starting its adolescent vaccination program, this study aimed to explore the adolescents' perception of vaccination, their COVID-appropriate behavior, compliance with two doses of COVID-19 vaccines and the experienced side effects following vaccination. Methods: A longitudinal survey was conducted among 440 adolescents visiting the COVID Vaccination Center (CVC) of a tertiary hospital in West Bengal. In the survey, adolescents were asked about family socio-demographic characteristics, their opinions on COVID-19 vaccines, and COVID-19 Appropriate Behavior (CAB) practices. Voluntary participants were given a questionnaire to fill and a telephonic interview was taken regarding side effects experienced following the vaccination and their compliance to both doses of vaccine. Results: The majority of adolescents (99.3%) had taken vaccines by their own wish. The reason for willingness to take the vaccine was the fear of being infected with COVID-19 infection (50.5%). Maximum adolescents got information regarding the COVID vaccination program through the internet (41.8%) followed by family members (30.5%). The majority of adolescents (70.9%) had a good perception of COVID-19 vaccination. A significant number of adolescents (44.8%) strongly disagreed with the statement that they don't need to follow COVID appropriate behavior after vaccination. Conclusion: The majority of adolescents had a good perception regarding COVID-19.
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Introduction: Recent COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health problem worldwide. Knowledge about the disease and adoption of COVID Appropriate Behavior (CAB) are of utmost importance in combating the pandemic. The study was conducted to assess and compare the knowledge, attitude, and practice and to determine different misconceptions and wrong practices related to the disease among urban and rural populations. Materials and Methods: A community-based analytical study with cross-sectional design was conducted from January 2021 to March 2021 among 144 adult residents from urban and rural West Bengal. Multistage sampling was adopted and a predesigned, pretested, semistructured schedule was used for interviewing study subjects. Results: Urban people were significantly more knowledgeable and more appropriate in attitude and practice than rural people (P < 0.05). The mean knowledge and attitude scores of urban population were significantly higher than the rural population across age groups, gender, occupation, and education (P < 0.05), whereas mean practice score was significantly higher across gender and occupation in the urban population compared to the rural population (P < 0.05). Many cultural and indigenous practices such as drinking warm water, using mouth wash, using home remedies were more common in urban areas and consumption of homeopathy medicines, lighting candles, making sound with utensils, blowing conch shells, and worshipping corona were observed more in rural areas. Conclusions: Wide gap exists in knowledge, attitude, and practice between urban and rural population and there were many wrong perceptions and practices surrounding COVID-19 among both urban and rural population. Appropriate policy for improving knowledge, attitude, and CAB is the need of the hour.
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Background: Adolescent youngsters' adherence to COVID-19 Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) is essential to forestall and oversee Covid illness 19. The review planned to decide the pervasiveness and related variables of adherence to CAB in juvenile youngsters by applying Health Benefit Model (HBM) and summing up friendly convictions. Techniques: This is a hospital-based, cross-sectional review done between January 202 to June 2022. A pre-tied, organized, questioner-regulated device was utilized to gather information from 384 members. Information was gathered from Outpatients after acquiring informed assent. Results: The mean (SD) period of members was 16.3 (2.84) years. Around 56% of members were male. Adherence to all CAB means was 23%, it was not viewed as associated with age and orientation. The most widely recognized rehearsed CAB measure was face cover (64.2%) trailed by handwashing (56.71%). Conclusion: The adherence to CAB was low among young adolescents. It is critical to consider the wellbeing training, parenteral help, social maxims, seriousness, benefit, boundary, prompt to activity, pessimism and compensation for application to work on the adherence towards CAB.
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In India during the first wave of COVID-19 infection, the authorities were concerned about the advent of the festive season, which could lead to a surge in cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The present study attempted to assess the socio-behavioral aspects of COVID-appropriate behavior (CAB) at individual and community levels, and their impact on the transmission of COVID-19 during festivities in India. Media scanning was conducted to qualitatively assess CAB by analyzing 284 news reports from across India; quantitative data on COVID-19 daily cases from March 2020 to December 2020 were used to determine the trends of the adjusted test positivity (ATP) ratio for six cities. Peaks in ATP were observed in Chandigarh, Delhi-NCR in North India during and after Dussehra and Deepavali, and in Mumbai, in the west, after Navratri. Additionally, a surge in ATP was observed in Trivandrum after Onam and in Chennai around Deepavali in the south; meanwhile, in the eastern city of Kolkata, cases increased following Durga Puja. The major challenges were adherence to CAB viz. social distancing, hygiene, and compliance with the mask mandate. Microlevel CAB indicated relatively higher laxity in maintaining hand hygiene in all cities. Observations from the current study indicate that innovative community-driven initiatives during festivals in each geographical zone are key to the large-scale implementation of disease prevention measures.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Adenosine Triphosphate , COVID-19/epidemiology , Cities , Humans , India/epidemiology , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed the health system across India leading to not only the loss of innumerable human lives but also exposed the various shortcomings of healthcare infrastructure. This emphasizes the need for a better preparedness of the health system across the nation to tackle the potential third wave of COVID-19 pandemic more importantly now as the cases and test positivity rate has started to show a downward trend all over India. The key areas which need to be targeted are augmenting the vaccine production and streamlining delivery mechanism, strengthening the existing pediatric emergency units and sick newborn units, expanding the oxygen production capacity in the country, ensuring the availability of drugs, strengthening of health infrastructure, logistic support and surveillance systems, expanding the free testing and diagnostic facilities, improved access to healthcare facilities, and reinforcement of COVID appropriate behavior in the community.
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Pregnancy is usually a period of joy, happiness, and expectation for a baby. However, COVID-19 changed the priority and created an environment of worry, perceived threats, and increased protective behaviour to safeguard mother and baby against COVID-19. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess, the level of knowledge, perceived threats, protective behavior, and factors affecting protective behavior among pregnant women by using a convenient sampling technique. The questionnaire collected the demographic profile, knowledge related to the risk factors of COVID-19, perceived treats (severity and susceptibility), and protective behaviors adopted by pregnant women. RESULT: Among the 325 pregnant women, knowledge was high (50.5%), the highest relative Importance Index for perceived susceptibility and severity was coming to hospital visits (0.64), and the belief that COVID-19 is a severe health problem (0.81) respectively. Around 69.8% had followed COVID appropriate protective behaviors. The study also revealed that, a high level of knowledge (AOR=2.45, 95%CI:1.45-4.13) and having a university education (AOR= 2.91, 95%CI:1.62-5.22) had a significantly higher probability of adapting COVID appropriate behavior among pregnant women. CONCLUSION: This study emphasizes the need to streamline communication and adequate education for pregnant women which can help reduce perceived threats and improve protective behavior.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Anxiety , COVID-19/prevention & control , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Humans , Pregnancy , Pregnant Women , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related pandemic has been in existence for almost 2 years now after its possible emergence from a wet market in the city of Wuhan of the Chinese mainland. Evidence of the emergence and transmission of this virus was attributed to bats and pangolins. The causative virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has rapidly spread globally, affecting humans considerably with its current death toll to be over 4.7 million out of more than 233 confirmed cases as of September 2021. The virus is constantly mutating and continuously trying to establish itself in humans by increasing its transmissibility and virulence through its numerous emerging variants. Several countries have been facing multiple waves of COVID-19 outbreaks one after the other, putting the medical and healthcare establishments under tremendous stress. Although very few drugs and vaccines have been approved for emergency use, their production capabilities need to meet the needs of a huge global population. Currently, not even a quarter of the world population is vaccinated. The situation in India has worsened during the ongoing second wave with the involvement of virus variants with a rapid and huge surge in COVID-19 cases, where the scarcity of hospital infrastructure, antiviral agents, and oxygen has led to increased deaths. Recently, increased surveillance and monitoring, strengthening of medical facilities, campaigns of awareness programs, progressive vaccination drive, and high collaborative efforts have led to limiting the surge of COVID-19 cases in India to a low level. This review outlines the global status of the pandemic with special reference to the Indian scenario.